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Our Anniversary

Seven years ago today, Julia and I were married, and in a strange coincidence I find myself writing an essay on all the preparations leading up to our wedding day. I hadn’t planned on writing on this subject during the week surrounding our anniversary, but the publication that I hope will run this essay set a deadline of June 30th several months ago.

As I wrote the first draft yesterday, I started thinking about all that had passed since then. I’ve written about some of that in my manuscript, so rather than repeat all the details here I’ll just say it’s been both a wonderful and a difficult seven years. Very little went as expected. Seven years ago I saw myself teaching at a university, while Julia expected to take her outsourced accounting job with her wherever we moved. We didn’t plan on having child with a cleft lip who would later develop Apraxia, nor did we plan to go through the financial difficulties we did.

But through the tough times we were always there for each other. We have an amazing daughter—intelligent, outgoing, creative, beautiful, and stubborn. We have our faith—tested though it’s been. And we have each other.

Nothing else is as important as those three things.

When Julia and I decided to get married, we knew that it was once, and we knew it was for life. Seven years is supposed to be when the so-called itch starts, when the weaknesses of the relationship start to show, when the familiarity begins to wear thin, and when the eye begins to wander.

I’ve never understood that cliché and I don’t understand it now. We’ve been married for seven years, we’ve known each other for almost eleven, and I can honestly say that I love her more each day. Our relationship is still growing. It’s not always perfect, and that’s usually my fault, but it’s always strong. We are open and honest with each other and the disagreements we do have rarely last more than an hour or two. We make sure not to say goodbye or goodnight to each other without resolving our differences and we tell each other “I love you” several times a day.

She is my rock, my sanity, and my best friend—the one person I can tell anything to. She says I’m the same for her, and I’m glad I can be.

That one day, we will all hold hands and D A N C E in heaven, like birds on trees, being moved by the warm magnolia breeze, like purple annuals and yellow perennials growing in the same garden of love.